Whenever you go for a shopping just click on those links and buy whatever you want and I will get a small commission for it without you having to pay one single penny extra: Amazon, Olympus US store, Adorama, B&H, eBay.

I am not to “up” on the m43 arena but lets think here
$600 for a pen and $900 for this lens, thats $1500

Anyone who wants to zoom in that far will buy a $300 30x zoom, not a $1500 pen zoom.

Well you can argue they want better quality, ok, any one who is looking to for quality and is willing to pay $1000+ for it more then likely knows a thing or two about photography and will not get such a slow lens when you can get a 50mm-200mm/2.8-3.5 with a m43 adapter for almost the same price and have way better quality

Well then you can argue they want good quality and small size (since the 50mm-200mm is big)

1. The 75-300mm is small compared to equiv true but… when compared to pancakes, its huge. And when you put it on a pen it kinda defeat the entire purpose of the pen which is to be a small/pocket-able quality camera, right?

2. The people who are knowledgeable about photography and are willing to give up 2.8-3.5 and good quality for a 4.8-6.7 with poor quality, JUST for a small change in size are not many.

3. WHY IGNORE LOYAL BASE TO satisfy a small crowd who are probable not even begging for lens like these? They would probably would prefer semi fast prime telephotos

4.If you are shooting 180mm+ what are you doing? Sports, Nature? I mean what/where are you going that you can take a pen and this 75-300mm but you cant take a pen with a 50mm-200mm2.8-3.5?

4. I mean 300mm with no tripod and the fastest you can go is 6.7? I have a hard time with my E3 and 70-300 @300mm and 5.6….
And if you are going to use a tripod, why not get a 50-200mm f2.8?

5. Oly why not just make a m43 50-200mm and a 1.4x or 2.0x adapter??? Samsung NX has a 50mm-200mm/f4.-5.6 FOR $249!!!!

I was considering pen for a backup but not any more…
I don’t know much about pens but…
I love oly, I have been with them for long time and my regular set up is E3 and 35-100f2, Zuiko H&SH grade lenses are the best PERIOD$$$ in my opinion (in today’s market at least).

Thats why I am with oly BUT…..
I do not understand the moves oly is making right now, they look as if they are in the process of dropping the ball.

And what bothers me is that it seems like I am not alone. I don’t fear oly NOT gaining market share, I fear a mass exodus of loyal oly pro/semi pro/enthusiast/hobbyist users over time, and a oly pen lineup that is bullied by NEX and NX

which may cause oly to abandon the pro arena and maybe render my gear useless for the future or stunt my gear growth severely.

I don’t even want talk about the E5 and the unnecessary gap in there dslr camera releases

I am no analyst… but if someone can make sense of this please explain to me before I end of with high blood pressure.

We must pray something BIG happens a photokina

sry for any typos

SMMT

Seems good if you need the reach. I wonder how well it focuses.

Mattias

According to the MTF is is quite a bit sharper than the FT 70-300.

four thirds photo

Not bitingly sharp and most detail smeared away.
For the price better optically quality could be asked for.
Don’t understand why someone would spend so much money on a bad lens.
Better buy a fast voigtlander prime instead.

Ad

Agree with four thirds photo, the 40-150mm doesn’t look too sharp. If this is the best it can do, I will stick with the Panasonic 45-200mm which is sharper at f/8 than what I see here.

wtf??

There has to be something wrong with the sample pictures? The quality is so poor at 100% and ISO seems to be low when you look at EXIF. E-PL1 should not produce so bad IQ

These pictures do a poor job of advertising for these lenses. Everything is a bit soft at 100%, and it looks like there was some sort of unfortunate processing done on them (esp. the 300 mm example) that left bits of chunky noise everywhere. Really, given the MTF charts, I would have expected much, much better, so I’m going to guess that properly-exposed and processed shots would look a lot better.

There was a similar issue with the 14-150 mm, where the early Oly sample images were a mess, while sample images from people like Brian Mosely over at mu-43.com looked really good.

Personally, I can see the appeal of these lenses, and I can imagine many ordinary users (not the highly enthusiastic folks who hang out here) liking them very well for the sorts of things they do with cameras; methinks the sample pics of kids playing soccer were not chosen idly. Since it’s so cheap, I might even get the 40-150 mm if the tests at slrgear and the like show decent results. However, like a lot of you here, I’ll be tapping my feet impatiently and waiting for the 12 mm and the micro-4/3 port of the 50 mm macro.

mpgxsvcd

All of the samples look horrible. They have way to much noise reduction and it is obvious that the small apertures on these lenses make them useless for anything but taking pictures of the sun.

I am going to just pretend Olympus didn’t try to pass off a new color for a camera and some pathetic lenses as an announcement.

Come on Panasonic! Don’t disappoint us like Olympus.

Ashton Sharapova

its a new LENS COLOR my man… get it STRAIGHT. this is an IMPORTANT announcement. you plebeians and ninjas can have the 17mm in black! it can be pray time now to olympus, mighty creator of m4/3, taker of fine pictures and big cash moneys.

Also not too impressed with these samples – they look like they haven’t been focused properly, or shot without enough light, then had a lot of sharpening and NR applied to “fix” them.

Maybe Olympus should employ a photographer to take some decent sample images.

Boooo!

LOL

Olympus is losing it. If they keep this up, they’ll have to close their imaging division in less than a year.

I’ve seen mobile phones produce better photos than these…

Ab

Hey, one thing people forget, these things are really VERY small. You want to lug around an APSC systen with a 150-400mm lens to reach 600mm, go for it. This lens wasnt meant for you… Wow, with all the moaning you would think there are no options for this system.

ANNOUNCEMENT You know when the promised lenses are coming, they are all dated on the roadmap, and Olympus has stuck to their release schedule VERY well. The 43rds system now has the potential for native VC lenses…

Man you would think it has been 5 years since the launch of this, seriously, It has been JUST OVER 1 YEAR since the first Pen from Olympus, in that time they have released 5 zooms and 1 prime, you can shoot now anywhere from 18mm equiv to 600mm equiv and have a variety of choices from panasonic as well.

Man, all these whiners make photography forums such a BORE… dont like it, start your own camera company and show olympus how it is done. Maybe in 100years you will have achieved what they have in 100years.

And at the same time there is a huge need of other lenses, especially small and fast primes, so why does Olympus release this crap? That’s the question.

If you don’t understand that, and well, if you don’t like what we say in these forums, start your own and be the only happy man on it.

Unless there are surprises at Photokina (Panasonic?? Are you listening??) I’ll start looking out of u4/3 and from what I read here from “whiners” I’ll not be alone.

Whiner

yo i heard you like haterade with your whine so i put a comment about drinking haterade in response to your whine about whining, so you can hate while you whine!

cL

I know, there are lots of whiners here…. Here is my rant (about whiners).

1. These sample photos are for Japanese market. They’re showing what a typical shooter could do with these lenses, not a pro result a typical consumer cannot achieve like most American ads typically do. MFT chart shows 75-300mm at least, is a good lens, on par with 4/3.

2. Let’s face it, m4/3 is never meant to be for pros. The size of m4/3 caught my attention to Olympus brand, but I ended up owning E-620, because after my extensive research, I just couldn’t bear the quality of m4/3 lenses when compared with regular 4/3. I don’t know why people acted like as if these two new m4/3 lenses are particularly bad (dim maybe, but not bad for small lens on small sensor like 4/3). They’re certainly not worse than Canonikon’s regular line lenses. If you want stellar quality lens that can compete with Leica or Zeiss, go regular 4/3, period.

3. A pro can shoot better photos with a Holga than an “enthusiast” with a Leica S2. Fact.

4. Optimal resolution for a competition print of 11×14″ photo is 12mp. 4/3 format is very close to 11×14″ dimension. You don’t need more than 12mp. Olympus knows what they’re talking about. Use 97% OVF coverage to your advantage (if you owned an e-620 like me). That means you already have 3% extra space built-in for you to crop. If 3% is not enough, you need to take a class.

5. A 12MP camera with good dynamic range gives you small, good photos (if you call 11×14″ small). An camera with 128Gigapixel with terrible dynamic range gives you a supersized junk. Fact.

6. Cameras like E-3, D700 or 5D are not money makers, face it. Not even Canon could make money on their 1D. They’re status symbols. Cheap P&S make more profit because of sales volume. Olympus has already sunk a lot of money on PEN, hoping they’ll make enough money so they can support this expensive project called E-5. Those of you Olympus “pro shooters” who diss PEN are shooting yourself in the foot. If PEN is a failure, you’re kissing goodbye to regular 4/3 forever.

7. Those of you who think NEX and NX is any competition, then you certainly don’t think like a pro. Sony NEX is too expensive (and body is too small for the lens). NX is like Pentax, good specs for the price if you can get a good copy of that lens…. Olympus lenses are built like tanks (HG and up anyways). No competition there. Pros shoots several thousands of photos a month, lousy quality is very costly. Would you like it when you’re shooting a once-a-life-time photo when your lens fail on you?

8. Don’t forget optics is also a high tech industry. R&D costs LOTS of money and time commitment for bug testing, so Ab has a point, okay? Go start your own lens company in this economic condition.

9. Just for the laugh. Go see a psychiatrist. They probably can find a label for people who are over zealous about specs. Then they’ll prescribe you with some medication, which only makes you want to jump off Golden Gate Bridge rather than shooting a photo of it. Come on, enjoy life the way it is. Don’t be a spec queen.

ANGRY Olympus Owner

you right
No one cares about MP that’s been settled

“Cheap P&S make more profit because of sales volume”
good point.
tell me though to you really think this $900 plus a $550 pen is cheap? that’s $1500

I don’t agree that the pens are paying for the E5 though, if anything in my opinion they delayed the advancement of the E-series.
All these features you see in the pen, video and stuff would have been in the E-series which would have meant more lenses for E-, and more sales for E-, more people on E then there are right now, and less people having left E-.

but oly concluded that the growth of putting these things in the E would not be as big as the growth of these things combined with a new thing called the pen… and they were right

I wouldn’t mind a mirror-less pro body similar to E3 in size, then oly could make pro lenses even faster (a 35-100mmf1.8)

Zuiko is the best that is true
I don’t think they should use there small sensor advantage to only go small though, I think they should use it to make lenses that are the same size as there competitors alot faster

I have nothing against pen, but it did fund the future E-series, if anything I think the pen delayed it.

I am not angry with the oly because of the pen, I am angry because they could do so much better with the pen, I need back-up camera and I would love to have a pen but oly wont let me give them my money because they make bewildering choices like these.

I want a GH1 style pen from oly, I would even take a E-p2 as a back-up if it had some fast primes….. but there is nothing

My concern is that the pen may fail or not do as good as it should/could and that will hurt me as a E-man one way or another.

In my opinion they better merge the 2 (4/3 & m43) and do it quick and successfully

And pro cameras bring in money, so do oly HG & SHG lenses, they are unmatched

I hope oly don’t drop the ball again
they can do great things right now

NEX and NX are no competition.. but they can be with time if they are left unchecked

cL

I hope you guys don’t take it personally. I don’t mean to target any of you in particular. I wrote a lot, then I sit down a bit and think; lots of of my points are financial talks, which probably is foreign language to most of you as f-stop was a couple years ago for me.

Then I realized something: ANGRY Olympus Owner is actually WORRIED Olympus Owner. He is just worried our beloved 4/3 would die because of m4/3’s fast growth (which is a fallacy, by the way). When thinking from that direction, I can’t be hard on ANGRY Oly anymore.

Let’s face it, PEN is making money and 4/3 is not so much (not to mention its ripple effect to Olympus brand). If you are on Olympus’s Board, you’d be very careful not to mention using PEN’s revenue to fund E-5, because that money belongs to PEN division. I think Olympus shows enough dedication already, despite a little too slow to loyal customers.

I could not find any bug on my E-620. When was the last time you used a product like that? I think Olympus is doing the right thing delaying their product so they are useful tools from the get-go. Every month of delay = one month of payroll not offset by revenue. That’s a double whammy for Olympus, so please don’t punish Olympus further, or we would have no honest company left. Too bad quality assurance isn’t a headliner for electronic gadgets, but it’s the most important thing to people who bought their camera with their hard-earned money. Those who have E-3 waiting for E-5, is your E-3 broken yet?

I suspect Olympus released the two new lenses too prematurely, therefore they’re compromising 1 stop speed for quality (since they have no development time to ensure both are in top quality). Why? I suspect because PEN is so successful, they must ride on the momentum before people forget about the brand. Timing is very important to product release you see.

FYI. SHG lenses are made to order, inspected by real people. They’re sold to you at the same price level of mass-produced Canon L series lenses. On top of that, Japanese Yen is getting stronger, so profit margin is not that big when sold to the U.S.. If I could afford one, I’d be more gracious than you guys are.

My original post basically says this: do no give a bad review to a thing that you have not yet used, let alone E-5 does not even exist! There are whiners everywhere: Canon whiners, Nikon whiners, Sony whiners (technically they’re Minolta loyalists :-p). If you gathered enough whiners, you have a concert. If Olympus built a lens, as you said, same size as Canon or Nikon’s, then there would be size queens whining “I thought the point of 4/3 is size. I’m switching.”

So what if E-5 is going to be the last in line? I’m not going to feel bitter. I only wish it’s going to be one heck of a camera that I could use until it breaks. I’m sure that’s what Olympus would do too, so E-5 owners could have a fond memory of a legendary camera despite it costs them an arm and a leg to produce. Live for the day, okay?

PS. My name is cL™ (small letter c). It looks like a monocle next to a nose profile. But I also like ANGRY Oly’s name, because it’s so… grumpy. Just kidding…. :-p Mandatory comic relief. (*runs for his life*)

four thirds photo

CL, you are right in many aspects you describe.
But don’t forget that Olympus promised a much faster follow up of the E3 as they followed up the E1.
Based on this decision many people invested a lot in 4/3rds.
I own the three most expensive SHG lenses.

Unfortunately, quality standards of clients and stock agencies increase every year and with new technology images that are possible now were not possible 5 years ago. In this environment and against their own promise, Olympus failed to deliver the 4/3rds upgrade within a reasonable time. Low DR and noise in iso 200 images is really a problem nowadays (it was not when the E3 was released)

Customers are not crazy and although you are right in most aspects you are writing, the whining on this and other forums reflects Olympus calving reputation.

The ones who could afford it migrated and others keep whining on forums. Olympus should blame them self. Expect a lot of whining after the E5 announcement too.

Building a good reputation takes a very long time, loosing it happens when you don’t keep your word once (and Olympus did not keep their word more then once)

Neville

You forget the point. Olympus is showing evidence that they are leaving 43rds for m43rds despite what they are saying. So everybody has very good reason to whine if they are going to be forced into the Pen series, or have to buy the E-5 which unless it has some fancy IQ is only a 1 step improvement over the 620 (except for the weather-proofing). I own a EPL-1 and a 50-200 with 1.4 for my 43. Putting the zoom on the EPL-1. You have GOT to be joking. Those MFT figures are not at all good. I have in the last 4 months shot around 4000 photos with the 50-200 with the E-620. A small aperture of 6 is near useless unless you have a tripod. So why have a pen if you are going to take the zoom lens AND a tripod

ANGRY Olympus Owner

If I was spending $900 I would rather have 50-200mm on my pen and deal with the size issue before I buy a 75-300mm with poor IQ and f6.7 just to have a small lens that will probably need a tripod anyway

Compared it because of the price, both are $900

Dan #2

Thank you!

Dan #2

To CL that is. Well brought up. Some point may be a little uninformed but generally well summed up.

cL

I hope it doesn’t sound rude, but what are the points you thought to be uninformed. I need to know so I can correct myself.

Velocity

Olympus has stuck to their lens release schedule? Dude, I’m still waiting for my telephoto macro lens. You know, the one for standard 4/3? It was supposed to be released in 2007. Then 2008. Then 2009. I’m glad to see that it’s still on their road map, and I guess that I’m glad that they’re no longer marking it with a date of release? At least they’re being realistic now.

Yeah, we have options – Sigma makes some lovely 105mm and 150mm macro lenses. But Sigma has stated that they’re no longer going to support 4/3, so once they update or discontinue those lenses, we won’t be getting any other telephoto macros from them. Get ’em while they’re available, I suppose…

Tom

death to micro four thirds…! Olympus would sell out to the point-n-shoot masses and make an interchangeable lens camera the size of a finger if it could. I clutch tightly to my beloved E-3 until it has taken its last breath…er, shutter click rather.

ANGRY Olympus Owner

The thing is I don’t even see how they can market this 300mm6.7 thing to a point ans shooter. What point and shooter will spend $1500 for a camera vs $300 for a good 30x zoom.

They would have to want & know what good image quality is if they are willing to spend so much, and this lens does not produce.

43 has such potential for fast primes and zoom and mft has even more. But oly seems to not even have plans to take advantage of there inherit edge, they want to fight with there cousin panny

I think it will fail unless price change

and no more lenses until spring 2011
things don’t look good

hopfully there will be a couple lens announcements for normal 4/3 this year

Tom

I absolutely agree 100%. I will once again state how much I hate these Pens and Sony NEXs and whatever new little toy comes along >:) And these ARE nothing but expensive toys.

Dan #2

You lot are retarded. AB summed it up nicely.

Tom

not really

Anderw

Hey Mr. Admin, can we bombard Olympus and Panasonic with emails that have links to this site?

Eric

Hilarious, they are even releasing sample images of kids playing soccer. If it weren’t already clear enough that they are focusing on soccer moms instead of photographers this pretty much confirms it. Ugh.

CRB

LOL………..

omgreo

Not really impressed with the IQ of these two lenses. Guess we’ll just have to hope for something good from Panasonic.

agreed

my first thoughts too, eric!
olympus is sending us a message here that they are clearly going for soccer mums!!!

this effective 600mm has not been built for photographers who aspire towards taking incredible award winning shots of wildlife or even pin sharp fascinating photos of the moon…like you would find on the canon or nikon websites. no! olympus is saying only one thing…

you are a soccer mom and you want pictures of your kids. thank god panasonic is here!!!!!

Ab

You know what i fond funny, people talking about a pro grade M43 system… The evidence on the ground is that Olympus does not want to compete with its 43rds line. They wouldnt over engineer lenses for their digital system only to scrap the lot.

I have an E-3 and a bunch of HG lenses… all i ever read was complaints about the weight and size “Where is the weight and size saving” they crid out, missing that that has been sacrificed for performance and speed on many occasions… Now we have olympus producing comparatively TINY lenses and sacrificing some performance and the crowd cries “there do not perform well enough, where is the performance”…

BIG PICTURE olympus just released a lens that was NOT on the original lens roadmap for this timeframe, it was due in about 6 months. They are hammering out these lenses as fast as possible.

I for one commend them on their efforts, if people want a size price performance the E-620 and its coming upgrade will be perfect, those who want absolute portability now have more and more options.

Forums, noone wins on them, go to Sony, oh they cry the ides of march, go to Nikon “WHERE IS THE D700x” go to Canon… “The D60 is a total downgrade, i dont want the D7 I want a PROPER D60″…

If a camera company listened to forums the way the whiners wanted they would be spinning on their heads.

Ab

Eric

People aren’t exactly asking for a 14-35mm f/2 zoom. We simply want a standard zoom that doesn’t hit f/5.6 on the long end (or f/6.7). I also don’t think a 25mm f/1.4 or 45mm f/1.4 is too much to ask. In-fact I say those two lenses are pretty much a requirement. From what I’ve been able to gather what most forum people want is exactly what we envisioned when m4/3’s was announced; a Leica for the rest of us. I simply don’t see why a fisheye or a 75-300mm f/6.7 lens are more important to Olympus then a range of small fast primes (12mm, 17mm, 25mm, 45mm).

I don’t see an Olympus E-620 as an option either. I stopped using cropped sensor DSLR’s due to the tiny optical view finders they all now employ. And an E-620 has one of the worst pentamirrors on the market. It’s not as bad as the E-420, but it’s still awful none the less.

On a good note, I don’t see how Olympus can make any more crap consumer zooms; I think they have them all covered now.

Neville

@AB

Do you know something we don’t know – a E620 replacement?

Ab

Hey Neville,
I dont, unfortunately. However the most sensible approack for olympus to follow would be to upgrade the e-620 as it was the design base that so many parts went into the ep series. To add video and their smert port to that body with the Trupic 5 would keep many DLSR users happy… The really blast out the E-5 with their highest tech.

That is my speculation. It makes sound business sense as does releasing zooms before primes. How many times have i given my E-3 with 50f2 or my a850 with 50f1.4 or now my ep217mmf2.8 to someone and watch them stand still and twist the focus ring trying to “zoom” zoom zoom is all people know, give the masses their zooms then get on with producing some niche lenses.

HAving VC release the 25mm f0.95 was great news, who do you think will come next? m43 is only getting started, people shout NEX from the rooftops but the 18-200 zoom is massive… compared to the 14-150 it is a monster.

Panasonic will compete head to head with video and sony, Olympus will focus on cameras, the ep2 is beautiful and olympus deserves more credit than it received for designing such a beautiful body.

BS Artiste

+1

There are engineering trade-offs for any set of lens parameters: speed, size, weight, manufacturing cost, etc.

Olympus may have produced one or more lenses that do not match the trade-offs preferred by customers. Time will tell.

However, expecting to get a value proposition of small, fast, high-performance, and low-cost seems to be bundling several competing engineering and design criteria in the product. To survive Oly’s value proposition will have to be better than competing cameras, but it seems unrealistic to demand small, fast, professional level performance and low-cost all in the same product.

ANGRY Olympus Owner

Very true

I will pay for the goods, no problem. But this 300mmf6.7 is big money and it is not good IQ from what I see so far.

I have no problem paying for good lenses though

Tom

on the bright side, the girl in the photos is cute :)

Reza

On a different note from all the doom and gloom posts, here’s some info from the Exif information of the sample pictures from the model. The 40-150 lens used is apparently the very first model, with serial number 00000000! The 75-300 one is the 18th lens they have made. Both of the shots are taken with E-PL1, with wireless flash, at base ISO 200. I can imagine both of them were shot on tripod, since the exposure time are about 1/40s to 1/50s, which is too low to handhold at such focal lengths. The IS was turned off on the 40-150 lens, since we know you’d better do that for sharper pics on tripod. Interestingly the 75-300 was used with IS on, why I can’t figure out (they forgot to turn it off? I do that all the time!)

They were both shot in RAW and processed into JPEGs, since the Exifs contain the focus distance. Oly cameras remove the focus distance from OOC JPEGS, only RAW ones have them.

Finally there seems to be a bug in the “lens info” field of the 75-300 lens. The lens model of the 40-150 reads: “Lens Model: 40.0-150.0 mm f/4.0-5.6”, which sounds right, but the lens model of the (el expensivo) 75-300 reads: “Lens Model: 75.0-300.0 mm f/183.5”. f/183.5???? Maybe this lens is even slower than we all thought?!!! If correct, m4/3 is doomed!

Well I’m actually happy to see some exotic glass in there, the super ED and ED glass is something we don’t usually see in glass of this “calibre”.

The soccer boys with the medals actually shows pretty good detail in the jersey’s especially the boy on the left. Not sure what’s going on the with the middle boys skin, very mushy, perhaps over compressed or something…

I guess these are wide open, and actually it’s pretty good since direct linking shows them at 100% zoom.

I still think the 75-300 is over priced though…. and As others have said, I’d rather see some fast primes. Though with all these zooms, there isn’t really much else in the “slow zooms” that Olympus or Panasonic could really fill in unless they started replacing “old” ones… Hopefully that means we’ll start seeing some premium zooms and bright primes!

mFT has a huge head start on thier competitors, it’s sad to see them give the competitors so much time to catch up. Sure the mass will love these slow zooms, but the enthusiast crowd is having a tough time staying excited. Panasonic made a splash with the 20mm f/1.7, I hope Pany/Oly really start throwing out some exciting stuff…

I’m most excited for:
12mm f2.8 or brighter
17mm f/2.0 or brighter
45mm f/2.0 or brighter (pany was so close)
12-35 f/2.0-2.8 or something like that… with pure plastic construction maybe it can be relatively light and compact…

Zaph

I’m not really sure that the people here who are saying “Big deal, I’ll just use my Nikon/Canon, with 70-200” are really the target market. If you look at the sizes of the semi-comparable lenses (Canon 70-200, Sigma 70-200, Nikon 70-200):

– the Oly 40-150 lens is half the length, and 1/8 the weight. You are talking about a difference of 200 grams vs 1.5 kgs for most of these lenses.

– 20cm vs 10 cm in length, 60mm dia vs 90+mm.

– With camera and small bag you are talking about a difference of under 1kg for m43 and 2.5kg for dSLR, and around the same difference in overall volume. Or about a camera you can easily put around your neck, vs one you need to shoulder or bag. I’d even say an E-Px with this lens would be coat pocketable and handbag friendly, where a dSLR with 70-200 would not even come close.

– Yes, the image quality isn’t *quite* there yet compared to those lenses, but it’s getting closer to where it needs to be. There will always be compromises for advances in other areas like size and weight.

– If you have any kind of condition that effects your muscles or causes you pain (carpal tunnel, etc) the difference between working with a 700gram small camera vs a 2kg large camera could be huge – even to be point where the heavier camera is unusable. With aging populations too, I think this is a feature of m43 that helps it.

– Hiking, biking, holidays, etc do have considerations for size and weight. I guess it just depends then whether a super zoom bridge camera is good enough for your needs there or not.

(The reason I say semi-comparable is that yes, I understand that some are professional and weather sealed, and faster)

I mainly agree with cL’s conclusions. Oly with its FT format will have trouble with all other camera brands standing in line to miniaturize their cameras – for very good reasons! A lot of people are not willing to carry kilograms of photographic equipment, for some of which you also need to carry a heavy tripod! Therefore, the mFT (and of course also the P&S) cameras in general are a success. Just delivering for the FT market, Olympus would loose ground to Sony, Samsung, Pentax, Panasonic and the like. I also assume that Canon and Nikon will try to produce smaller amd lighter cameras in the future. If you can buy an APS-C sensor camera which weighs less and is smaller than a FT camera, what is the point in buying the latter, unless you have the stature of a body builder and hands like toilet lids? I know that FT cameras are not big and heavy, but in relation to other cameras they are getting bigger. Go figure…

Gabi

PS: That said, I think the 75-300 just seems too expensive for what it might deliver. Therefore, I will definitely wait for the reviews before even considering to buy it.

cL

You must have mistaken me with someone else, Gabi. I did not talk about anything you have said….

I’ve gain quite a few pounds of muscles hiking and carrying my heavy equipment, not optimal, but so I’m okay with that. ;-) BTW, Gabi, HG 4/3 lenses are smaller than Canon’s, but they’re NOT lighter…. Metal construction and weather sealed. Quite sexy in my book, really, but it may be an acquired taste. :-p m4/3 and 4/3 are not targeting the same market. I don’t think PEN users would carry a tripod either… (unless they make Kevin Spacey carrying it).

Voldenuit

Horrible, horrible image quality, and this is from *the promotional pics*!

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Here is the definition of the word “rumor” according to Merriam Webster dictionary:

Pronunciation: \ˈrü-mər\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English rumour, from Anglo-French, from Latin rumor clamor, gossip; akin to Old English rēon to lament, Sanskrit rauti he roars

Date: 14th century
1: talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source
2: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth
3 archaic : talk or report of a notable person or event

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